


to think how happy we could have been

by advantagetexas



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, guess who wrote more about the sad dads
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-11
Updated: 2016-07-11
Packaged: 2018-07-23 01:10:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7460715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/advantagetexas/pseuds/advantagetexas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was just a simple job, at first, or at least that was what Reaper thought. Take out the vigilante, and that was it. But it turned into something much different, and much worse. Sometimes the things you've buried don't stay dead for long.</p>
            </blockquote>





	to think how happy we could have been

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is technically a prequel to [this fic i wrote](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7455654) but it can also be read on its own! also, the title is from [this song tbh](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HPUwNOJa3w)

There are some things you can’t change. The past, being one of them, no matter how nice it would be to go back and do everything again. To make everything better again. To not make your… _mistake_ again, Reaper thinks to himself, sitting on the edge of a terraza overlooking the city. Because really, that’s what it was, a mistake. He was angry; at the organization, for picking their poster boy over him just because he “set a better public image”, whatever that was supposed to mean; at the rest of Overwatch for just letting it happen, for letting him get passed up for the glory he _deserved_. He was angry at Jack, at first, for not seeing what was so wrong about taking the job.

But then, as he became further embroiled in the plan to take Overwatch down, as he became an integral part in its demise, he realized that he couldn’t hate Jack. He was just a pawn, like the rest of them, genuinely thinking he was doing what was right and blindly following orders. Even in the last seconds before the building crumbled over their heads, after he’d lead a goddamn rebellion against him, he couldn’t bring himself to hate Jack Morrison.

He’d spent a long time under a burden of guilt for what he’d done. Spent five long years coping with the fact that he was a monster. He wasn’t alive anymore, not really. More like a vampire, subsisting on the souls of people, innocent people, that he’d killed just to stay vaguely human. He’d joined fights, started wars, done horrible, _horrible_ things just for the fleeting moments where he still felt loosely mortal. He’d killed the man he loved, over a glory that would never be his, and then spiraled into an infamy that would eclipse any of his former deeds.

And then _he_ had showed up. The masked vigilante. At first, there was just something so familiar about him, as if Reaper had seen him before. Even in the short news footage clips, there was something in the way he carried himself, in the way he moved, that was distressingly familiar.

“Découler, Reaper,” Widowmaker says, appearing next to him on the roof as silently as a ghost. He hadn’t even noticed her arrival. “Je veux dire, I’ve found him. In a hostel two streets over. We will have to be careful, it seems that old soldiers do not sleep,” she says, with what could almost be a faint chuckle. He must be hearing things. He just nodded in response, waiting for her order before moving out down the empty street.

They were on their last ropes. After the mess at Gibraltar, and the absolute disaster of the gauntlet heist, Talon was giving him one last shot to prove his worth. He didn’t quite see what the point of that was, honestly. He had nothing to lose. He could kill every last one of their agents and feast on their souls and there would be nothing Talon could do to stop him, but he planned to let them keep their wrong assumptions until it became absolutely necessary to show them how powerless they really were.

The hostel was run down, with the stucco cracking and moss growing up the sides of the walls. Widowmaker pointed to a window just above their heads, then made the signal that meant “I’ll cover you from here.” Reaper just nodded in response, before taking his wraith form and ghosting up into the room.

It was dark, with no lights on at all, but the occupant of the room wasn’t sleeping. In fact, he was still fully dressed, and pointing his rifle in the direction of the window, right at Reaper’s chest. His raised shotgun pointed back as 76 fired a round directly into his chest. Unluckily for him, he hadn’t waited for Reaper to completely re-form, and the round harmlessly passed through him. He stepped forward and lunged for the gun, pointing it away from himself and toward the floor as he ripped it out of 76’s hands. He knew he wouldn’t risk harming the civilians downstairs, like the high and mighty “vigilante” he pretended to be. Reaper stuck a shotgun under his chin, holding onto his jacket with the other hand to make sure that he didn’t squirm away somehow.

“Any last words?” he asked with a stilted laugh. Even despite the mask he could feel the anger radiating in his direction from the soon to be dead man in front of him.

“Jodete, pendejo,” hisses a voice he thought he’d never hear again, and god if it doesn’t send a chill down his spine, wraith form or not. Because it’s _him_ , goddamnit. That’s Jack, _his_ Jack. But it can’t be. No, no, no, Jack is dead, he died 5 years ago, there’s no way that this could be…

The second’s hesitation is all 76 needs to aim a wicked uppercut at Reaper’s mask, sending him sprawling back. He lashes out with his claws, one of them catching on the edge of 76’s mask and pulling it off completely. Reaper only gets a glance, but in that second he swears a lifetime passes. The same blue eyes that used to light up when he told jokes, that used to crinkle when he said something especially embarrassing. The same cheeks that used to turn bright red any time he mentioned their days together as cadets. The same face he used to kiss goodbye in the mornings, now marred by a large scar, but besides that the same, stared back at him, full of anger and righteousness.

Before Jack can retaliate, Reyes makes a break for the window, ghosting back down to the street. Widowmaker gives him a confused look, and makes to aim her rifle at him, the possibility of betrayal clear in her mind. Reaper is just a second faster, wrapping one clawed gauntlet around her throat and squeezing just slightly. His arm glows red for a second, and then Widowmaker goes slack in his grasp, her eyes losing their wrathful glare in a matter of seconds. Hopefully he’d only drained enough of her soul to incapacitate her for a few days and not kill her entirely, he thinks to himself as he hoists her limp form over his shoulder.

“I’ve got you in my sights,” he hears from the window as he re-forms 20 feet away, the cobblestones where he was standing not a second earlier now filled with craters. He has to leave, to get out of here, but there’s a part of him that almost doesn’t want to. A part of him wants to stay as a penance for the things he’s done, to let the man he used to love…the man he _still_ loves, be his judge, jury, and executioner. The weight of the unconscious woman on his shoulder is the only thing that keeps his feet moving as he runs away. Amélie doesn’t deserve a death by rifle fire, so it seems that today, for once, Reaper’s only option is to retreat.

He allows himself a single look back as he goes, sees the red glint of a visor disappear from the window and feels his heart seize up. He’d have to find something else to do, now that Talon was going to be after him. Find some other way to get enough souls to stay human, to stay alive.

Was it really worth it? He thinks to himself, left to his own thought with nothing more than the click of his boots against the ground for company. Was Jack worth the trouble?

And then he remembers the mornings where neither of them wanted to get out of bed, when they just laid there together, legs intertwined, and talked about the future. About _their_ future. He remembers Jack’s horrible attempts at learning Spanish, and how they would both laugh every time he would say “you te quiero” or “pendego”, and how he would correct him and Jack would shut him up by kissing him. He remembers all the good times, the last times he was actually _happy_. And how he’ll never have that again.


End file.
